Amy LaVere, Mark Pickerel

[AMERICANA] Americana songstress Amy LaVere's most recent album of new material, 2011’s Stranger Me, features a lot of self-searching, doubt, curiosity and a pervasive who-the-hell-am-I theme. LaVere’s performances have an appealingly sarcastic and biting devil-may-care vibe, but considering the source material is so personal, that’s not really surprising. Her workmanlike attitude is also impressive given that she moonlights in other bands and performs on other projects when she’s not doing her own stuff. LaVere’s music isn’t exactly upbeat, but as long as she’s creating, she’s happy as a clam.